C pipe bad value from parent proccess

Question

I have this simple program, but when I wanted to check the value that I get from the child it returns 1995694080 or similiar numbers. I'm a bit confused, how can I achieve to get the real value of msg? It looks like I'm getting some random trash value from somewhere else where I'm not supposed to. I made this pipe sendier based on a tutorial, and it's mostly works just when I'm sending back the data from the child it fails. Any idea or suggestion?

int pipefd[2];

int main()
{
    signal(SIGTERM, handler);
    signal(SIGUSR1, finishedOrder);
    pid_t pid;


    if (pipe(pipefd) == -1)
    {
        perror("Error while making pipe.\n");
        exit(1);
    }

    pid = fork();

    if (pid < 0)
    {
        perror("Fork error.\n");
        exit(1);
    }

    if (pid > 0)
    {
        employer(pid, 4, false);
    }
    else
    {
        employee(getppid());
    }
}

void employer(pid_t pid, int id, bool two)
{
    int rec;

    printf("[Szülő]: várok egy szerelő csapatra! \n");
    sleep(1);

    kill(pid, SIGTERM);

    pause();

    if (two)
    {
        /.../
    }
    else
    {
        printf("[Szülő]: dolgozz a %d. feladaton\n", id);
        close(pipefd[0]);
        write(pipefd[1], &id, sizeof(id)); //this is works.
        close(pipefd[1]);
        sleep(1);

        kill(pid, SIGTERM);

        pause();

        kill(pid, SIGTERM);
    }

    pause();

    close(pipefd[1]);
    read(pipefd[0], &rec, sizeof(rec));

    printf("%d\n", rec); // here I get the strange value

    if (rec == 4)
    {
        printf("[Szülő]: feljegyeztem a módosításokat.\n");
        if (two)
        {
            /**/
        }
        else
        {
            /**/
        }
    }

}

void employee(pid_t emp)
{
    int jobs[2];
    pause();

    printf("[Gyerek]: munkára jelentkezek\n");
    sleep(1);

    kill(emp, SIGTERM);

    pause();

    close(pipefd[1]);

    read(pipefd[0], &jobs[0], sizeof(jobs[0]));
    close(pipefd[0]);
    printf("[Gyerek]: elkezdek dolgozni a %d. feladaton.\n", jobs[0]);
    sleep(1);
    kill(emp, SIGUSR1);
    pause();

    sleep(1);
    read(pipefd[0], &jobs[1], sizeof(jobs[1]));


    if (jobs[1] != 0)
    {
        printf("[Gyerek]: elkezdek dolgozni a %d. feladaton.\n", jobs[1]);
        sleep(1);

        kill(emp, SIGUSR1);
    }

    close(pipefd[0]);
    fflush(NULL);
    int msg = 4;
    printf("%d\n", msg);
    write(pipefd[1], &msg, sizeof(msg));
    close(pipefd[1]);

    sleep(1);
    kill(emp, SIGTERM);
}

void handler(int signum)
{
}

void finishedOrder()
{
}

Answer 1

read(pipefd[0], &rec, sizeof(rec));

You don't check the value returned by read to see how much data you've received. If you did, you'll probably find that it is not what you expect because earlier on in your code you did this...

    close(pipefd[0]);

You can't read from a file descriptor after you've closed it. And somewhat more importantly, the "pipe" you created isn't bi-directional. If you want to send and receive, you need to do two calls to pipe to get two pairs of file descriptors.

Given that you also do close(pipefd[1]) before the read which means that you've closed both ends of the pipe, it looks like you've misunderstood what the purpose of closeing is for in this context. The child and parent close the end of the pipe that they're not using - that's it. It doesn't signify anything about who is reading or writing to the pipe.